Restructuring: Bakare wants reconciliation commission

The Serving Overseer of The Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has suggested steps for the restructuring of Nigeria.

He called for the establishment of a Presidential Commission on National Reconciliation, Reintegration and Restructuring through an executive order in consultation with the Council of State and the National Assembly to midwife the desired restructuring of the country.

Bakare, in his state of the nation address at his church yesterday, said President Muhammadu Buhari was not against restructuring going by what he learnt from his interaction with him in the last seven years.

Bakare who was Buhari’s running mate when Buhari ran for president in 2011, said, “Not only does the president want agitations managed through appropriate constitutional channels, he also wants a clarification of demands in concise terms, as well as propositions on practical pathways towards achieving those demands.”

In the address titled, ‘Pragmatic Steps towards Restructuring Nigeria,’ Bakare suggested that the presidential reconciliation commission he was canvassing should be given the mandate to facilitate the evolution of a functional and acceptable geopolitical structure, by which the Federal Government could progressively devolve powers to the existing 36 states, which would themselves progressively evolve into a zonal arrangement.

He said he was an advocate of a pragmatic restructuring where all the interests of all segments of the country would be taken care of, and advised those calling for secession to bear in mind that before the creation of the Nigerian state, there were no such entities as Yoruba nation, Igbo nation, Hausa nation, or Ijaw nation.

He said, “We must not be misled by nostalgia for a spurious harmonious past or the myth of homogenous ethnic groups that is far removed from reality. The area around the Niger was marked with unrest, continuous intergroup conflict, subjugation, enslavement and oppression of the weaker by the stronger until Nigeria provided the possibility for peaceful coexistence. For this, we must appreciate the Nigerian state, we must celebrate our Nigerian-ness and we must gravitate towards strengthening our nationhood rather than cursing our blessing.”